


Chess Pieces

by cl2y



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Dishonored 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Almost Plotless, Chess, First Time, M/M, Mentions Duke Luca Abele, Mentions Piero Joplin, Non-Penetrative Sex, Not Beta Read, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 00:24:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10708293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cl2y/pseuds/cl2y
Summary: After Sokolov had convinced Corvo to keep Jindosh alive and his mind unharmed, the young inventor is kept hidden away in the bowels of the Dreadful Wale. With little to occupy him he settles for spending time with a man of almost equal intelligence.





	Chess Pieces

“He’s staring again, Anton.” Meagan huffed, reaching for a clean enough rag to wipe the food from Sokolov’s shirt.

“Hah, leave him.” He smiled, “he’s just observing a glimpse of his future; old and frail with a beautiful woman helping him not to drool all over himself.” He added louder, so that Jindosh would hear him.

“I don’t know why you even bothered to convince Corvo to let him live. After what he’d done.” Meagan went back to eating her own food, a loaded crossbow beside her. He had repeatedly told them that he wouldn’t try to escape, knowing there were hagfish and worse in the waters. Though there was no reason he couldn’t figure out how to steer the Dreadful Wale or it’s skiff back to safety.

Jindosh supposed it was a blessing that he still retained his sanity. Corvo had taken the time to explain how grateful he should be to Sokolov, after all he had been the one to convince Corvo to spare him even though he had decided to destroy his laboratory regardless. Being corralled around in handcuffs, jailed in a ship with waves that did little to calm his nerves, and only having his chamber pot emptied once a day was insufferable.

Sokolov took the time to give Jindosh riddles and such to pass the days. He had spent three days working on an answer before Sokolov had told him it was impossible. Jindosh had it solved in the next four days. The old man had grinned at him with his crooked teeth through the window in his door before leaving him for the day.

Months had passed inside the tiny room. Working through Sokolov’s riddles, surviving Corvo and Meagan’s interrogations. Even he could not explain the events of what had happened three years ago. The void was beyond his mind, but with the Royal Protector bearing it’s mark, and Sokolov explaining his meagre theories from years ago he figured a few things out. Not through science but through the supernatural, though it brought him a great discomfort.

Sokolov came to his door, a few taps on its window before he heard the key turn in the lock and the tumblers spinning and dancing as it swung open.

“I thought you might like to sit on deck for a while.” He walked slowly, with the gait of an old man refusing to use a cane. “I know how dreadful it is to be locked away.” He hummed. Jindosh followed, if only to figure out where he was on the sea by any landmass that sat on the horizon. Close enough to Karnaca, but the skiff was gone, which meant he and the old philosopher were alone.

“Taking such risks is below you, Sokolov.” Jindosh sniffed, it smelt worse on deck than below it.

“What will you do, Jindosh? Throw me into the sea? Club me on the head?” He laughed softly. “You’re a smart man, and you know there’s nothing on this ship you could build to deter our Royal Protector from dismantling you like one of your machines if I am absent.” Sokolov turns back to the sea view, his shaking hands pouring two cups of tea. He’d prefer some King Street brandy but Meagan had him on the dry to make sure the electroshocks hadn’t done irreversible damage.

They sit in silence save the birds and waves that surround them. The tea goes cold in Jindosh’s hands and he throws it overboard.

“It’s not poison.” Sokolov hums, his own cup empty and refilled. Jindosh ignores him, he’s counting the copper coils, the bullets, the screws, the nuts, the sheets of metal, the bottles, anything and everything. He hears Sokolov laugh beside him, and his gaze returns to the sea.

Hours pass, Sokolov makes a fresh pot of tea, and brings out a small cup of sugar for Jindosh to use. He takes it reluctantly, and spoons five into his drink before holding the tea between his fingers. He throws that overboard as well out of spite. Jindosh expects to be ushered back into his room when the skiff starts it journey back, but Sokolov remains on the top deck pulling his jacket around himself.

Corvo puts him back into his rooms, and disgraces the man with an arguably invasive search. Emptying his pockets and patting him down before locking him away. He and Sokolov argue that night, about how dangerous Jindosh may be. He doesn’t hear Sokolov’s reasons no matter how much he strains his ears, but the ship falls silent over night.

Jindosh lays awake, attempting to figure out why he was kept alive. Hypatia hadn’t lived through Corvo’s meeting, too angry perhaps? So why had he? It would be useless to use him as a bargaining chip in regards to the Duke. Useful and one of a kind that Jindosh may be, he’s hardly worth Karnaca to Abele.

Days pass with Meagan glaring at him, Sokolov is absent from meals again, and they don’t force Jindosh to eat any of the meals they prepare. They just leave it on the floor by the entrance like he’s some kind of rabid wolfhound. He eats as much as he can manage, fish doesn’t sit well in his stomach.

Sokolov sneaks into his room one night, a low lit lamp in hand, and locks the door behind him.

“Minds fester easier than fruit on this boat. Chess?” He sighs, his knees pop as he sits on the mattress, avoiding Jindosh’s skeletal feet popping up under the sheets.

“Can you not play with yourself?” Jindosh scoffs. Sokolov lets a grin prickle his lips.

“I’m far too old for that.” He pauses and endures Jindosh’s glares, “I’ll let you start.”

“Pawn to E4.”

“Pawn to E5.”

“Pawn to F4.”

“Pawn takes pawn.” Sokolov shrugs.

“Bishop to C4. Don’t be too smug Sokolov.”

“Queen to H4. I’m hardly smug Jindosh.”

“King to F1.” Jindosh can see victory already, a few moves and Sokolov will have to swallow his imaginary chess board and his imaginary chess pieces and his imaginary pride. As soon as Sokolov takes his sacrificed rook Jindosh has a guaranteed win in nine moves.

Sokolov offers to shake his hand but Jindosh refuses it. The old philosopher struggles to stand straight, but takes his lamp back to his own rooms leaving Jindosh in the dark. He sifts through his mind wondering if Sokolov let him win. Is he trying to break down his walls? To leave him vulnerable? No, Sokolov isn’t that stupid.

Corvo interrogates him about Ashworth and Stilton again. That bloody drooling idiot. Meagan drops off his food, fish again, and Sokolov pulls him into a second game of chess. Jindosh wins, and still denies Sokolov his hand shake.

The fish continues, the chess continues, trying to figure out why Sokolov spared him via Corvo continues. Jindosh can’t simply ask him, what kind of genius asks people for answers? Jindosh finds himself anxious for Sokolov’s visits. Playing chess against himself as the hours go by, until the old philosopher visits him.

“Pawn to D4.” Jindosh starts before Sokolov has the chance to sit on the end of his bed.

“Pawn to D5.” He huffs.

“If you’re ill, Sokolov, I’d rather be left alone. This entire ship is crawling with vermin and disease, pawn to C4.”

“Old age isn’t catching, Jindosh. Pawn to E6.” Sokolov huffs and rubs his eyes, the late night visits aren’t doing him any good but he enjoys the challenge nonetheless.

“Why am I here, Sokolov? Knight to C3”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already. Knight to F6.”

“Yes your Royal Protector dragged me here on that dreadful skiff and chained me up like a prized whore. Knight to F3.”

“Bishop to E7.”

“Avoiding the question is immature, Sokolov. Bishop to G5.”

“I’m old enough to reflect now, I’ve made mistakes.” He hushed Jindosh with a shaking hand, “And hindering others for my own gain was one of them. Piero, I had him expelled from the academy, what a fool I was.”

“Take your turn.”

“Hm. The idea is, Jindosh, that hindering genius is probably the most idiotic thing a man can do.” He pats Jindosh’s hands gently. “Perhaps one day, under Emily’s hand, you’ll abandon your clockwork soldiers as I did with my tallboys and instead make something worthwhile.”

“My clockwork soldiers will carry my name into the years.”

“Children, Jindosh, children will carry your name into the years.” Sokolov hummed. Jindosh feels his face twitch awkwardly into a frown, and embarrassment clamber up his spine. He has no children, sex in all hadn’t ever been that interesting to him. All those parties Duke Abele threw with orgies and sweating bodies rutting in every room, Jindosh would always find a way to hide. Picking through the food or reading in the library, anything to be away from mindless groping hands.

Sokolov stands at Jindosh’s silence and takes his leave. He feels awkward at the man’s expression, genius he may be but family seems beyond his grasp. Sokolov himself had eight children, at the very least.

“Goodnight, Jindosh.”

“Goodnight, Sokolov.”

The weeks go by, more fish, more questions, more chess. The last is the most enjoyable, Jindosh has the lead by three games though Sokolov had fallen asleep in the last one. Meagan had almost killed him at the sight of the old philosopher slumped over.

“Do you have children, Jindosh?” Sokolov asked, fiddling with a small mechanical box. From what he had heard Jindosh was relatively alone. No family that he still kept in contact with if they were even alive, and no one smart enough for him to indulge in for any length of time.

“No.” Jindosh wanted to grab the small contraption from his hands for something to play with.

“No wife? Partner? Nothing?”

“Such needs are beneath me. A physical response to stimulus, it’s hardly entertaining.”

“My dear Jindosh, I find it delightful that I have found something you have yet to learn.” Sokolov hummed and squinted at the box. He needed a magnifying glass for a closer look, or eye glasses. “Maids, servants, guests, a dozen willing bodies. Even all at once.”

“The Duke seems to advise on your sort of company.”

“Oh no, not him. Bloody despot. I’m sure there are thousands wanting to pick you apart piece by piece, to watch you come undone.” He rubs his eyes and sets the box down.

“Yourself amongst them?”

“I’m very old, Jindosh, and you’re a prisoner. Even I was granted intimate mercy at your hands.”

“We once spoke of reflection and of mistakes.” Jindosh treaded carefully into unfamiliar waters. “If I had slept with you all those years ago, would you have petitioned against myself being expelled from the academy?”

“The decision was out of my hands. Such death at the hands of a student-”

“Implies progress, that particular mechanical work birthed my clockwork soldiers.” He glanced out between the cracks of the covered window. “But you would have had intercourse with me.”

“Here I had hoped you would have glazed over that.”

“I do not glaze over anything.” He snapped. “Teach me then, Professor Sokolov.” He pulled at the ribbon around his neck, slipping buttons from buttonholes before Sokolov stopped him.

“Do not be so foolish, Jindosh.” Sokolov whispered. His hands grasping at Jindosh’s own shaking ones. He steadied himself with a deep and carefully disguised breath. Kirin went to his knees, even in the empty yet absurdly cramped room, and pressed his hands flat against Sokolov’s waist.

His hands, still working against the tremors, unbuckled Sokolov’s belt, and pulled it through the loops, coiling it loosely before leaving it on the bed. Jindosh had seen it a thousand times, he had once seen three women, lips and tongues across the Duke’s cock, it was basic anatomy. His fingers, awkward without the ceramic digits he had built himself, opened Sokolov’s slacks.

The old philosopher was soft and limp in his under things, and Kirin felt remarkably awkward at the whole situation. His own cock had started to swell in his own trousers, not noticeably, but enough to discomfort Jindosh himself. He runs his knuckles across the curve of Sokolov’s cock, gently at first, watching how he shifts his hips to relax himself. The muscles in his thighs settle, and Jindosh uses his other hand to push down on his own growing erection.

“If you have dysfunction-” Jindosh bites the inside of his cheek, gently pulling Sokolov’s cock from its confines. Smooth soft skin, uncut, peeking out from wiry hair. It’s odd to come so close to another man’s genitalia. To know that the renowned genius Anton Sokolov has a cock like any other, like he himself had.

Kirin inspects it like a thing to dissect. His thumb pulls back the foreskin, over the sensitive skin of the head, in his mind he trawls over the names of arteries and nerves in a human penis. He watches as it slowly hardens in his grasp, the way Anton’s breathing increases ever so slightly. His hand moves naturally, fingers dancing across its length. Sokolov pushes Jindosh’s hand to a tighter grasp, and he takes offence at the action.

Jindosh did not need to be helped to give someone stimulus. He frowned and slapped the hand away. Mouths, three mouths on Duke Abele’s cock, Jindosh could bring Sokolov off with just one. He kisses the tip, fully exposed, and gently pulls the head into his mouth. His tongue prods at the taste, obtuse and not all that pleasant, but takes Anton’s half hard member into his mouth easily.

He uses his tongue to push it against the upper ridges of his mouth, it fits so well his mind notifies him, and moves slowly. Kirin hollows out his cheeks, sucking until the cock falls from his lips. A glance upwards at Sokolov tells him almost everything he needs to know. His face has a minor flush across his cheeks and his lips are parted in an attempt to keep his breathing steady.

Jindosh swallows the cock again, it’s harder now. Where his lips had touched the base before, they could no longer reach there without his gag reflex shocking him into pulling away. But his mouth was wet, with every motion the cock grew wetter, and saliva was drawn across his lips. Kirin swallowed with Anton’s cock in his mouth, too much spit in there, and heard the old philosopher stutter his breath.

Sokolov wanted to reach out and grab at Jindosh’s groomed hair. To force his cock down his throat like so many others had let him. But this was a new experience. He had enjoyed men and women without any prior sexual conquests before, how nervous they were and he had been gentle. But Jindosh was something else. Eager, unassuming, learning how to manipulate his tongue around a foreign object.

He felt Kirin curl his tongue as he sucked, his cheeks adding extra pressure. Sokolov huffed and tightened his grip in the sheets. Jindosh recoiled between his thighs, his nose scrunching up at the taste. Anton cupped his cheek and pulled him back, an unwise move for the flare in Jindosh’s eyes, who now knew he had the upper hand.

Kirin mouthed at the head of Sokolov’s cock, his three fingered hand awkwardly rubbing up and down the shaft at Anton’s gentle instruction. His formed hand pressing on his own cock, wanting to decrease the pleasure he found in watching a heralded genius come undone.

The breathy moans coming from Anton’s lips spurred him on. Jindosh’s hand pumping quicker, his arm protesting at the movement, and his tongue repeatedly swiping over the tip of his cock.

“Jindosh,” Sokolov hissed, “Kirin.” He glanced down to see half lidded dark eyes staring up at him, the tip of his cock hidden behind plump wet lips. One hand threaded through Kirin’s hair, pushing his cock in deeper as he started to roll his hips. His lower back protested at the motion, but he ignored it in favour of the damp heat that was Jindosh’s mouth.

Kirin opposed every movement, watching the ex Royal Physician fall apart like a failed experiment. Except this was working so well, going against everything that Jindosh had ever taught himself. He swallowed hard as Sokolov came, a loud groan muffled in a painter’s jacket sleeve. The semen made him gag, his throat too abused not to react, and he pulled away coughing and red faced until he could breathe properly.

Anton had the decency to slip back into his under things and button up his slacks before Kirin had righted himself. He helped Jindosh back onto the bed, one hand resting on his thigh before it was slapped away.

“I don’t need it, Sokolov.” He crossed his legs awkwardly to hide the swell in his trousers. Anton let it go, in his youth he might have tried to persuade someone, but Kirin was hardly of a changing mind. Sokolov’s back ached by the time he had locked Kirin in his room, and had returned to his own.

Kirin stared at the white droplets on the floor the next morning, the ones that had been hacked from his throat. Meagan would think he had done it, how embarrassing.

Sokolov came to his room again the next night, one hand holding his back as he sat down beside the young genius. Jindosh took a good look at the man. In his youth he had admired the old philosopher, never particularly handsome with long sharp features, but his intelligence. If Kirin had been anything of a lesser man he would have resorted to bringing himself off at the academy to images of Sokolov between his thighs.

“Pawn to D4.” Jindosh states, disturbing the silence that had awkwardly blanketed them.

“Knight to F6.” Sokolov was happy enough that the events of last night had not spoiled Kirin. His back ached and Meagan had fussed over him enough to bring him half of the pillows on the ship for him to rest on.

“Knight to F3.”

“Pawn to G6.”

“Pawn to G3.”

“Pawn to C5, are you mimicking me, Jindosh?”

“Bishop to G2.” He scoffed.

Sokolov won that match, and Kirin gracefully accepted his handshake. What was one simple touch like that on what they had done last night. Jindosh had lain awake, calming his beating heart and his unsteady breath until his erection had flagged. The whole room smelt of sex, stifling him like it had at all those parties he had been forced to attend.

Neither Meagan nor Corvo knew of Jindosh and Sokolov’s late night rendezvous, nor of the intimacy that had passed. The old philosopher still ate his meals with Meagan pausing in her own to wipe his chin.

Weeks had passed, a chess game almost every night and fellatio every once in a while as if Kirin was a prized whore. He enjoyed learning how to pull Sokolov apart with just his mouth, how the man reacted when his three fingered hand played with his bollocks. Each time Kirin had stopped Anton from returning the action, he didn’t need to orgasm. His erection was simply a physical reaction to certain pressures, and he didn’t want it being validated or forced into reality.

Anton came to him once in the middle of the day, unlocking the door to his room and encouraging him to sit on top deck again. He could see the Dust District in the distance, no doubt after Stilton. Well good luck to him, the lock Jindosh had created was almost impossible to open. Two cups of tea were poured, and for the first time Kirin brought the cup to his lips and drank it. It was foul as expected, but the sea air was cold and the tea warmed a path inside of him.

“Pawn to E4.” Kirin starts, little else on his mind than unbalancing the scores further in his favour.

“Pawn to C6.”

“Pawn to D4.”

“Pawn to D5.”

“Knight to C3.”

“Pawn takes pawn. I’ve asked Corvo if he could find an old chess set lying around somewhere. We’ve left a few games unfinished, and it disrupts the tally.” Sokolov said, he pulls his coat closer into himself. “He knows of the time we spend together.”

“I suppose he thinks I’m seducing you into helping me escape, knight takes pawn.” Kirin scoffed.

“He knows we play chess from time to time. That’s all.” Sokolov laughed, “a genius dropping hints like that, I can only assume you want it to be known. Knight to D7.”

“Knight to F3.” Kirin sniffed and turned away. Some part of him did want it known, not for any reasons of love of familiarity. But because he knew how to take apart the ex Royal Physician. Duke Abele had told him multiple times that sex was power, Kirin had understood of course, but not to this degree of involvement.

“Knight to G6.”

Jindosh abandoned his tea and turned toward Sokolov, reaching over and unbuckling his belt, slipping in his hand and cupping the man’s softened cock. The simple warmth of a foreign limb around Anton’s groin brought it to life, slowly as expected. Sokolov still sipped at his cup, cooling the liquid with breath from his pursed lips. Kirin felt insulted for the disrespect that Anton was giving him, and he felt confused for wanting to kiss those thin chapped lips of his old professor.

Kirin pulled back his hand, and stood, taking away Anton’s tea and sitting astride the man’s lap. He had seen this done before, a guest and a member of the kitchen staff rutting in the pantry.

“We don’t get much from repetitive trials with the same outcome.” Sokolov whispered, his hands free from tremors, pulling at Jindosh’s trousers.

“We obtain certainty.” Kirin said, shuffling forward across Anton’s lap at the behest of the hand on his hip.

“What is certainty against the rush of pleasure? Figuring out something new, exploring newfound knowledge like a conqueror.” Anton pushed away the collar of Jindosh’s coat to kiss against his neck. Lightly at first, Kirin felt more of his breath than his lips, but it didn’t fail to erupt gooseflesh across his arms and legs at the sensation.

Sokolov ushered him closer, taking both of their cocks out from their slacks. He drags his thumb around the inside of his cheek before spreading the wetness across the head of Kirin’s cock. His fingers move slowly, pushing and pulling at Kirin’s foreskin until he can feel the small twitches of his hips. Anton’s hand coaxes the waistline of Kirin’s trousers down below the swell of his arse, exposing him to the cold sea air.

Jindosh grips at Sokolov’s shoulders, his feet planted either side of the chair they’re sat on. The ship still moves with the waves, much calmer now than before, but he wouldn’t risk falling off at any point. He has his eyes closed, learning more through touch than sight. Kirin feels the length of Sokolov’s cock touch his own. It’s foreign and unusual, he can’t bring himself to look at how desperate it is. The way his hips roll forward again, the pleasure tickling his groin when a large calloused hand envelopes them both.

The knowledge that they may be seen seems to arouse him more, the pleasure of people knowing the genius that is Kirin Jindosh is picking Sokolov apart piece by piece tunnels through him. He imagines it is akin to how he unveiled his first clockwork soldier, everyone in awe, gasping at his newest creation.

He can hear Anton trying to regulate his breathing. At first he assumed Anton would be loud, he had no reason not to be, and he had never been ashamed of his conquests. But time had changed him into something less robust, less offensive. Sokolov’s lips press against the hinge of his jaw, and all Jindosh can hear is the way his throat aches to moan. The sea around them has gone, the creaking of the ship, the harping gulls, everything around him is Anton Sokolov.

Jindosh’s hands tangle in greyed hair, his hips move faster and his legs complain at the foreign movement but he doesn’t stop. Anton moans beside him, low and grumbling, a few whispered words he can’t make out for the blood pounding around his ears. He imagines they are bright red, matching the heat he can feel across his chest and face.

His groin tightens, his thighs shaking, he arches himself closer to Sokolov’s body desperately chasing heights undiscovered. Kirin’s moans rip from his lungs, his hips stuttering involuntarily and he comes across Sokolov’s fist.

The amount he discharges is embarrassing, until he finds Anton’s cock falling limp as his own does. So lost in his own pleasure he had been blind to everything else. Sokolov hitches up the back of Jindosh’s slacks as the sea air begins to bite at his skin.

“Knight takes knight.” Kirin says with a shaking voice.

“Knight takes knight.” Sokolov repeats, smiling at Kirin’s frown. He had forgotten the board momentarily.

“Bishop to C4.” He unsteadily climbs from the lap and retakes his own seat, it’s a few minutes before Sokolov leaves to make another pot of tea and returns. Jindosh watches the horizon, and he sees the skiff making its return journey. No doubt they had come across the lock to Stilton’s house and hadn’t been able to access the fortified mansion. Or perhaps they had seen him writhing in Anton’s lap like a desperate kitchen maid.

Sokolov is there to meet them as the skiff is anchored to the Dreadful Wale. Corvo is angry that Jindosh is visible, anyone could see them, and if they attacked the ship? Anton would most likely be killed on sight.

“I need the combination to Stilton’s manor.” Corvo said. His mask still perched across his nose and every bit as terrifying as it probably had been during the rat plague.

“Couldn’t you figure that out for yourself, Royal Protector? There’s only ten rotatable pieces.” Jindosh said, he pursed his lips to blow on his tea, it would still be foul, but the sweet thrill of knowing he had the upper hand on Corvo felt incredible. The cup is torn from his grasp and thrown into the sea, and the thrill is gone, replaced by the fear of knowing Corvo had ripped apart all of his clockwork soldiers by hand, and all by himself.

“Have some decorum, Corvo.” Sokolov sighed from beside him. The old fool was defending him, a miracle of the Outsider’s influence or something as absurd.

“I’ll need something to write on, and my ceramic fingers back as well.”

“No.”

“I’m left handed-” he lied, “-unless you want some inane scribbles-”

“Anton will write it for you.”

“There’s little difference.” Jindosh scoffed. He wanted his fingers back, he’d prefer his real fingers. Undoubtedly they’re rotting outside of their preserved jar and can never be fully replaced.

The skiff leaves a scrap of paper heavier, and both men remain sitting on the upper deck. Kirin wonders if either of the two sailors had noted anything different about them, Anton had wiped most of the evidence away with an old painters rag before folding it away into his pocket, but semen tended to stain.

“Bishop to F5.” Sokolov starts the match up once more. Kirin wins by pining the opposing king between his queen and a pawn. The game could have gone on for hours if Anton had constantly moved his king back and forth between D8 and C7, but he accepts defeat gracefully.

They abandon chess for the moment, talking over mechanics and clockworks. Kirin tries to coax some ideas from him about how to reduce the cost of his clockwork soldiers, but he offers nothing. The only reason Sokolov’s tallboys had been cheaper was because they relied of human piloting, even then they had been expensive.

“It would be easier if you worked with us in the end, Kirin. Corvo is a force that should not be reckoned with.” He smiles, old memories flipping through his mind. “He once had me locked in a cage where I told him to kill me repeatedly.”

“I can assure you I have no intention of being in such circumstances.”

“The cage may look different but it is very much the same.” Anton sighed. “I don’t want to decimate your genius, Jindosh, but do believe me when I say that Corvo will not fail to save Emily, and he will return her to the throne safely.”

“That is not an unavoidable outcome.”

“It is. He may not be as academically intelligent as you or I, but he is something else.” He paused and huffed when Jindosh ignored him. “If you have something that may help us in the future, volunteer it.”

“If you think that a few intimate dalliances will alter my position-”

“I think an intelligent man would put aside his pride to understand that knowledge is meaningless in the void.” Sokolov hissed, he made to stand before Kirin’s hand clasped his wrist and sat him back down.

“Delilah didn’t think so. She came from the void, immortal, tell me how your precious Royal Protector will outmatch that.”

“He will find a way.”

“Blind optimism is a terrible trait in a philosopher, Sokolov.” Jindosh sniffed and stood. He brushed off his slacks, readjusting them from their skew-whiff angle, and told Anton to lock him back in his rooms. The old man was proving to be less intelligent than he had once thought, and he would rather be left alone.

Meagan thanks Jindosh when they return from Stilton’s manor, the code allowed Corvo to slip in and out without dealing with Paolo or Byrne. She tells him he doesn’t trust him still, but he did a good thing by helping them.

He expects Sokolov to wander to his rooms, conditioned to the late night visits, but grows frustrated as he denies him. Days pass and Kirin grows tired of simply waiting, and pulls out the box that Sokolov had left from before. He pulls the little mechanics apart, twisting a few thin pieces of copper wire together until he can create a good enough lock pick.

Determination and steady hands see the locks turn until he can easily open the door, and from there it’s all about working his way through the ship to get to Sokolov. One wrong move, one wrong door, and he could be face to face with the Royal Protector or the Captain of the Dreadful Wale. It begs the question why he doesn’t just journey to the skiff and leave.

Sokolov’s room is at the end of the debriefing area, across the board he can see his old allies cut from newspaper prints and lifelike sketches from the old philosopher. Stilton had been recently pinned up, left alive and at the mercy of his own mind. He stared back at his own face, a silvergraph of he and three others. Hypatia and Breanna had been crossed out, he bore a red question mark. Would he be killed after all of this?

Such a small part he had played in bringing Delilah to power. Luca had demanded his appearance in summoning her, and he could hardly deny the man who pushed money into him at the same rate he pushed his own cock into willing bodies. But beyond that? Nothing, he built the clockwork soldiers as he would have done for anyone, and keeping Sokolov? Well that had been for himself.

The old philosopher’s room was beyond a small metal work room. He peered through the window before stepping inside. Anton looked odd as he slept, curled onto one side with one hand clutching the pillow. He looked old, frail, as if the genius was simply decaying as time went by.

“I had wondered how long it would take you.” Sokolov whispered, readjusting to something comfier under the covers.

“I’m becoming increasingly bored without our chess games, Sokolov, as you said there is little else to do but fester.” Jindosh sat on the corner of the bed, mimicking how Sokolov had done so the first time they sat together.

“Pawn to C4.” He yawned.

“Pawn to C6.”

“Knight to C3.”

“Pawn to D5, am I to be killed, Sokolov?”

“Pawn to D4.”

“Pawn takes pawn, answer me.”

“Pawn to A4.”

“Pawn to E5, Anton.”

“Pawn to D5.” Sokolov sighed as he pulled himself up, removing the pillow from between his thighs, “it keeps my hips aligned with my back,” he explained. “I won’t lie to Emily about who you are, because you haven’t changed, Jindosh, you’re still the man who participated in a coup to overthrow her.” His shaking hands turned the small whale oil lamp on beside him, setting them both in a blue glow. “But I wouldn’t advocate for your death.”

“But you wouldn’t veto it either.” Kirin scoffed.

“I would, in the right circumstances. I think my word carries weight considering you kept me bound under armed guard with my brain addled.”

“If you had done as I had asked-”

“Hah, and they call you a genius.” He spat. Kirin couldn’t help but notice the irony. He hadn’t slept with Sokolov to ensure his place in the academy, but now he’s engaging in some sort of sexual actions with him, the man deems him worth a possibility of being saved. “I want you to change, Jindosh, it is so easy to allow the tide to take you out to sea, but people like Corvo, like us, we should fight against it to return to the shore.”

“Perhaps I am not so much a fool to believe I will survive seeing Emily reinstated as Empress.”

“Then perhaps I am too much of an old fool to watch you drown.” He grabbed Kirin’s hand, tense under his own, and squeezed it gently. He found it odd to be comforted by a man in his sleepwear, but strangely alluring.

Jindosh stood, and with more confidence than before, unbuttoned the clothes he wore. One by one folding them and placing them on Sokolov’s desk. The old philosopher said nothing, simply sat and watched as Kirin disrobed with none of the allure that brothel workers had. He found it amusing that Kirin was so mechanical in the way he undressed.

His under things came off last, folded in half atop the pile, and he stood naked in front of Sokolov. The whale oil glow made him look almost sickly pale, far too skinny from eating fish constantly, though without a single mark upon him. Anton took his hand and gently directed him to sit down, the sheets kicked away so that Jindosh could be beside Sokolov’s hips.

He kissed Kirin’s shoulder blade first, his hand against the slight curve in his waist, the other propping him up. His fingers trailed the length of his spine, knuckles rubbing against every notch that ran up his back.

“Would you lie back, Kirin?” Sokolov whispered, moving so he had the room to follow his commands. Kirin lay down with his head where Sokolov’s had been so recently, shifting his legs so the old philosopher could sit between them.

Sokolov pulled the sheets so they lay across his own back, giving them both a sense of privacy as he kissed down Jindosh’s chest. He massaged Kirin’s thighs, his bony fingers working wonders on the meat of his legs.

Jindosh felt loins begin to warm, arousal slowly pricking at his cock. Staring at Anton between his thighs, a world away from what he could have imagine in his youth, he grips the bed sheet between his fingers to keep him grounded when his cock is surrounded by the wet heat of a mouth. What a fool he had been all his years, refusing sexual intimacies from lesser people because they weren’t good enough for him. It didn’t matter what drivel came out of their mouths if his own cock was what went in.

He felt his lips part, his breath drying his lips so often he had to lick them repeatedly. Biting and chewing on them as Anton swallowed him. It was odd to think of him doing anything of the sort, Kirin saw people like the Duke as sexual deviants, asking for carved whalebone cocks to play with. But Anton, with ageing skin and fire in his eyes, and Kirin Jindosh’s cock in his mouth. The thought of it swelled his cock more than the sight until he truly focused on the man.

The ex Royal Physician between his legs, the man who painted aristocracy, who dined with Empresses, who cured a plague, had a mouthful of cock and Jindosh couldn’t fathom his arousal. He moaned involuntarily, and hushed himself with the palm of his hand.

Sokolov pulled away from Jindosh when his thighs began to tense up, and slipped down his own under things to rub his own cock. Staring down at Kirin, his legs spread and wet between the thighs. By the Outsider there was little else more beautiful.

He aligned himself above Kirin, his weight on his forearms as he placed their cocks together. He wanted to hear Jindosh moan again, like he had done up on the deck, loud and unflinching. His mind told him it would be unwise, Corvo and Meagan would no doubt hear them.

Sokolov pulled the sheets over their heads, encasing them as they rolled their hips. Kirin grabbed for Sokolov’s waist, then down across his arse to anchor himself to the old philosopher. More sounds tipped from his throat with Anton biting across his jaw line, his earlobes, sensitive areas that had never been explored before. Sokolov panted, his shoulders shaking from holding himself up, his teeth grazing Kirin’s neck. He hadn’t had sex like this in years.

The air around them is stifling. Both of them red faced and beginning to sweat, but nothing deterring them from their pleasure. Sokolov reaches down and pulls Jindosh’s hands from him pinning them beside his head weakly.

“No-” Kirin stutters, the tight friction is gone.

“Use your legs.” Anton huffs slowing the roll of his hips. He feels Jindosh’s legs pick up and cross behind his lower back, using them to pull his hips upwards against him. “Yes,” He grunts. “Yes.”

Jindosh’s hands slip free from Sokolov’s grasp and tangle in his night shirt, he tugs at it until it bunches under his arms and he moans when their skin contact is increased. For a genius he finds himself lacking for words, pulling uselessly at a shirt that won’t come off. Sokolov has to separate to remove it, and they both feel the heat escape into the room around them. He slips from his under things unattractive and ungracefully, but Jindosh doesn’t care because Sokolov presses their cocks together again and it’s as if the interlude never happened.

Their rhythm is lost for a moment, Sokolov angling their cocks together with one hand, staring down to make sure it’s as it was. But Kirin is watching him, the sweat on his brow, the flush across his nose. He can see every single detail that is scattered across his face, and absurdly, deep down, he wants to kiss him, to taste lips that spill such profound words.

One hand tangles into his hair, softly turning him so they are face to face, they pause for a split second, staring at each other, before Kirin presses their lips together. Careful to begin with, testing foreign waters, he knows Sokolov still wears a ring across his matrimonial finger.

Anton forgoes aligning their cocks perfectly, and kisses Jindosh with an unexpected ferocity. They rut slowly, building themselves back up again, moaning and gasping against each other’s lips. Kirin is all hands against Anton’s skin, clinging to the man as they climb towards their pleasure.

Sokolov finished first, a deep guttural grunt spilling from his lips and his seed leaking against Jindosh’s belly. He should be disgusted, all those years uninterestedly observing the Duke’s orgies, yet Anton Sokolov has undone him. A genius, not quite matching his own, but the closest there has ever been, finding intimate euphoria on top of him.

Jindosh takes himself in hand, three fingers awkwardly curling around his length until he shouts his pleasure, and their semen mixes. Sokolov carefully lays to one side, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He’s under no illusion that Kirin would cling to him like a whimpering whore, and for the heat they still exude he’s glad for it.

They both know they’ve been too loud when the boat creaking whispers to them. Had they been this loud before? Sound carried well over open water, it would be a miracle in audio science if the other two members of the ship had not heard the first time.

Kirin wipes himself with the bed cover, then uses Sokolov’s wash bowl to clean himself before redressing. He spares a glance back to the old philosopher, sleeping with a small grin across his lips. He exits the room, mindful of all three of the occupants on the Dreadful Wale.

The sight of a question mark drawn over his face catches his eye once more. He thinks back on Sokolov’s words, his paintings and his elixir are what will grant him a place in history not his arc pylon nor his tallboys. Anton Sokolov had found two ways to cure the plague, remedies and premature death. All Jindosh had to do was to figure out if he wanted his clockwork soldiers to be his legacy or something else yet to be determined. Regardless, he wouldn’t be drowning any time soon.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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